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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123517">The Scope of his Villainy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas'>thetransgirlwhoneverwas</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fictober 2020 [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Other, nothing explicit but NSFW subtext</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:21:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master has a problem. A problem he cannot admit to freely. A problem he is ashamed to talk about. A problem he must go to the Doctor for help with.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fictober 2020 [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Scope of his Villainy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ah, my dear Doctor. There’s no use in trying to sneak past me, I’ve known you were here since the moment your TARDIS landed. Come in, I’ve been expecting you.”</p><p>The Doctor sighed dramatically, as he had a long standing tendency to do. He turned the corner, half holding his breath waiting for a trap. Instead he saw a table. A table with two drink glasses on it and a bottle of what appeared from a distance to be Brisaldian Leaf Wine. The Doctor held back an impressed hum as he continued to examine the table and the surrounding area. Nothing seemed to be amiss. Apart, of course, from the two chairs, one empty, and one with that familiar, sinister figure sitting in it. The shrivelled, burned form of his long standing bitter rival, the only one in the universe who could keep up with him. The Master. Without each other, the two were almost incomplete, a fact that they both knew and which frequently drove them both to impotent rage. It had been a while since the Doctor had run into him, so long in fact that he had started to ask himself on his last few adventures when the villain of that day was going to turn out to have been manipulated by the Master, as frequently happened. But this was much more direct. Much less like the Master’s usual style. Much more worrying.</p><p>“So, when is the trap going to swing shut then, hmm?” the Doctor asked. “When are the jaws of death going to snap shut and gobble me up?”</p><p>“No tricks, Doctor,” the Master responded, feigning nonchalance. “Just a...friendly chat, you might say. I even provided drinks. Brisaldian Leaf Wine, I believe was a favourite of yours?”</p><p>“Poisoned, I assume?” the Doctor responded.</p><p>“Naturally,” the Master smirked. “But I suspect that you neutralised the psychic poison the moment you laid eyes on the container. Brisaldian Leaf Wine may be a delicacy, but it misses that <em>je ne sais quoi</em> without at least a little poison added in for an aftertaste.”</p><p>The Doctor failed to suppress the hum this time. He hadn’t taken the Master for a connoisseur, but he was absolutely right about the wine. Wasn’t quite the same unless it was just a little bit potentially lethal. He decided to take a chance and sit down, flinging his gaudy coat over the back of the chair as he did so.. He waited for the jets of flame, or the disintegrator ray, or whatever was going to happen, but nothing did.</p><p>“So, what did you call me here for?” the Doctor demanded. “I presume that distress beacon was a ruse?”</p><p>“Oh, I knew you would never come if you knew it was me calling you,” the Master answered, and he was right. “I had to come up with something, and you never can resist a call for help, can you?”</p><p>“You really aren’t convincing me that this isn’t a trap,” the Doctor said, looking around the feet of his chair for telltale signs of a trap door, but there really was nothing. He never thought the Master would be so unimaginative to use a pool filled with sharks, but at this point he would have taken the sharks over whatever this was. There was something even more unnerving than usual about the Master when he wasn’t springing a death trap or evil plot.</p><p>“Is it so hard to believe that I just wanted to talk?” the Master asked, still trying to come across as innocent and not sinister as possible. It, naturally, was not working.</p><p>“Yes,” the Doctor answered bluntly.</p><p>“Fair enough,” the Master conceded, taking a sip of his wine. The Doctor decided to risk doing the same. Even though he had indeed neutralised the psychic poison as soon as he saw the wine, he was wary about the possibility that it would do something horrible to him. Most possibilities were honestly worth the wine, however. He did so love a good Brisaldian Leaf Wine, and true to the Master’s word, it was seasoned perfectly and didn’t even seem to be doing anything nasty to the Doctor’s insides. He set his glass down with an appreciative smile.</p><p>“Now do you believe me?” the Master asked, still just as calm as he had been. “I really have no untoward plans to spring on you. I simply enjoy a rousing conversation with someone who can match my intellect, and as there is almost nobody in the universe who can do that, I thought I’d have to settle for you.”</p><p>The Doctor was tempted to take umbrage at that comment, for taking umbrage was something he was very good at doing. He had a voice that was perfect for scandalised outrage and he did enjoy righteously raising that rousing roar, but unlike usual, he could tell the Master wasn’t being serious with his comment. Rather, this appeared to be the start of what one could describe as banter, an act that the Doctor enjoyed just as much as taking umbrage at injustice.</p><p>“Yes, well, settling for second place is something you always were good at,” he retorted. “Since all the way back at the Academy.”</p><p>“Because we all know just how well you did at the Academy,” the Master returned fire. He seemed to be genuinely enjoying this. The Doctor certainly was. “How many tries did it take you to pass your dimensional multifaring examination again? Forty-six?”</p><p>“And yet look at which one of us has a consistently working TARDIS,” the Doctor replied.</p><p>“Neither of us do,” the Master admitted. “But in my case it’s because of constant sabotage, mostly thanks to you. In your case, you are simply a poor pilot.”</p><p>“Okay, that’s enough,” the Doctor stood, partially because he had had enough of this charade, and partially because he had entirely blanked on a witty response. “What is your game, Master? Why did you lure me here? What dastardly scheme do you have cooked up? Is this a trap? A distraction? What is it?”</p><p>“I promise you Doctor,” the Master replied, looking a little more annoyed now. “It is nothing of the sort. It is simply a friendly meeting. I brought wine, I brought chess. I even brought those jelly babies I know you like so much.”</p><p>The Doctor pointed directly at his opposite. “You need my help,” he accused.</p><p>The Master sighed, also dramatically, but less dramatically than the Doctor had dramatically sighed earlier. “I may, indeed, require your assistance, Doctor.”</p><p>The Doctor contemplated leaving. He considered taking his coat off the chair and walking away. He knew he should. This was the Master, after all. Whatever he needed help with would probably involve destruction, death on a huge scale. But then he remembered Logopolis. He remembered their days at the Academy. He remembered the wine, and the chess, and the jelly babies he had yet to sample. Then he sat back down.</p><p>“Okay then, let us pretend I am playing along,” he placed his elbows on the table and rested his head on his folded hands. “What would the Master require my help with?”</p><p>“I know that relative timelines can make our meetings confusing, but,” the Master started. “How long has it been since we have seen each other? How long since you have foiled an evil plot of mine? How long since we have tested each other in intellectual combat?”</p><p>“It has been a while,” the Doctor admitted. He would never say it, but he had missed it. He longed for the witty back and forth sometimes, when he was alone in his TARDIS at night.</p><p>“It has been a long time since, shall we say, inspiration struck me,” the Master continued. “I have been trying my best, but found I have been unable to...perform my evil. My attempts at villainy feel empty. They never go very far, and they bring me almost no pleasure when they do.”</p><p>“Are you telling me,” the Doctor was incredulous, even more than usual. “Are you telling that you have...villain’s block?”</p><p>“Certainly not!” the Master insisted. “But...if, theoretically, I was, how would you suggest I remedy the situation? Get back on top, as it were?”</p><p>“And you came to me for that?” the Doctor was slightly less incredulous, but still disbelieving. “After our entire history together? Everything that has been said between us? Why don’t you ask the Rani for help, she seems to be good at inspiring you.”</p><p>“Ah, yes,” the Master said ruefully. “But the Rani rather rejected my advan-well,” he cut himself off before he said anything else embarrassing. “Let’s just say she was unhelpful.”</p><p>The Doctor thought for quite a while. “I...think I’m the wrong person to ask,” the Doctor said, finally. “I don’t do evil things a lot, and when I’m doing good, I’m rather, well, reactive. I wait for something to start, and then I finish it. I’ve never really had a problem with getting that done.”</p><p>“I see,” the Master seemed genuinely upset. “I thought if I asked a Doctor I might find a solution.”</p><p>“I honestly wish I could help,” the Doctor said, also somewhat upset.</p><p>“You disappoint me, Doctor,” a little of that maniacal edge was back in the Master’s voice.</p><p>“I disappoint myself,” the Doctor said. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>He turned to leave.</p><p>“That’s it?” the Master demanded. “I go to you for help, tell you something incredibly humbling to admit, and you simply leave? Without even sampling these infernal jelly babies that I went to such trouble to find for you?”</p><p>“It can’t have been that much trouble,” the Doctor replied. “You can get them at any shop in England practically.”</p><p>“Do you know how difficult it is to enter a shop looking like I do without everyone running away and calling the police?” the Master insisted, equal parts angry and pleading. “You expect me to simply accept that I cannot perform my evil anymore? That you won’t help me? You want me to be satisfied with that?”</p><p>“Frankly, the universe is safer with you feeling...impotent,” the Doctor snapped back haughtily, rather enjoying the feeling of his arch enemy seemingly powerless before him. He walked away back in the direction of his TARDIS, ignoring the cry of “I shall have vengeance, Doctor!” behind him.</p>
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